Month: February 2014

Digital Citizenship at CMS

- librariantiff 5 Comments

I feel like one of the most important and relevant things that I can teach my students is how to be a responsible digital citizen. Honestly, most of the adults in their lives don’t truly “get it.” They don’t fully understand or consider the impact that a student’s digital footprint can have on their future. They don’t get how essential digital literacy skills are to a student’s success. I try to lead by example so I can show my students what a positive digital citizen who is creating a strong, transparent digital footprint looks like. I share the ways I use my blog, Twitter, and other networks to grow as a professional. And I facilitate discussions and activities where students consider the impact that their digital choices can have on different parts of their lives.

I originally posted about the Common Sense Media Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum back in October of 2011, and I’ve been adapting these lessons to my library curriculum ever since. They have a range of really great lesson ideas, videos, and print resources available for all grade levels K-12.

My absolute favorite lesson that I’ve taught this year is the Trillion-Dollar Footprint (click this link to access all lesson resources for this lesson). I’ve taken the lesson provided by Common Sense Media and created this presentation to guide my students through the discussions for this activity:

During this lesson, students look at the social media profiles of two potential job candidates to determine which works better with others and is more trustworthy. Students discover discrepancies in the social media profiles, and it sure does get them fired up and engaged in an active discussion! You know an activity is powerful when students continue to discuss it well after the lesson has ended, and that’s exactly what I found with this lesson. I loved this lesson so much that over the course of the first semester, I taught it to all of my 7th and 8th grade students.

I introduced my 6th grade students to this curriculum with the Digital Life 101 lesson. In this activity, students think about the different aspects of their digital lives and create a simile. Here are an example of what one of my students created:

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Other tried and true favorites for me from this curriculum include:

My favorite thing about these lessons is that they’re very discussion based and get students thinking about their digital lives. I interviewed some of my students and asked them about what they’ve learned about digital citizenship, and here’s what they had to say:

How is digital citizenship taught in your school? What role do you play in helping students better understand their digital lives?

March Madness at CMS!

- librariantiff 4 Comments

I remember thinking last year, “How cool!” when my friend Cathy Jo Nelson shared her March Madness display. When she shared a picture of her bracket for this year, I knew I wanted to steal this idea!

You should follow Cathy’s directions on her blog, especially where she explains how to seed the books. I didn’t think that hard before I started stapling, but I will follow the seeding rules when I do this again next year.

I ran the Destiny report that showed the top 25 circulated titles for this school year. For books that were part of a series, I just went with the first book in the series so I could have more variety in the selection. I also made some cute filler spots that I’ll replace with the winning titles along the way. Unsure of how much space this would all take up, I laid my bracket out on the tables (then moved to the floor when I needed more room) to see how much space I would need before I stapled everything on the wall. Yay for self-healing walls in the hallway!

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I’m planning to use Google Forms for the voting each week of March. I’ll post the links on Schoology so students can vote. Also during the first week, I’m going to have a place for students to make their predictions for the winner, and I’ll do some type of drawing/give away for a prize at the end of the month. IMG_4063

I think this is going to be a lot of fun and a great way to get our students excited and talking about some awesome books!

Speaking of March Madness….

SIGLIB (formerly SIGMS) will be hosting our annual March Madness discussions on Facebook this year! Make sure you join our Facebook group and participate in our discussions throughout the month of March…we’ll have some great ISTE book giveaways along the way!